Now it seems the PM is belatedly waking up to the danger. Perhaps she has drawn inspiration from her new best friend Barack Obama's much-vaunted American 'pivot' from the Middle East to Asia. We might be seeing the start of Gillard's very own pivot, away from the progressive siren-song of the Greens towards something much more akin to a hard-headed Labor foreign policy in the Hawke tradition.

After all, taking on the Greens is the ALP's only hope of regaining the political centre after Australia's aspirational voters decamped en masse from Labor to Tony Abbott.

A few weeks ago, Gillard directed Australia's diplomats to vote against Palestinian membership of UNESCO, reportedly overriding Kevin Rudd's cynical advice that this might undermine Australia's UN Security Council candidacy. This week we are seeing her stand up to the unions on free trade, pick a fight with the Greens and Labor's left over uranium exports to India, and throw out the carpet to US military forces in northern Australia.

These episodes may yet prove to be passing cloud-breaks of sense, islands of good policy. But perhaps they will add up to something more. If Gillard is serious about carrying through with her pivot, she will vote against Palestinian statehood should the issue arise in the UN General Assembly. She will quarantine defence spending from any budget cuts and push through the FTA with Japan (which should be easier now Tokyo looks like coming on board the Trans Pacific Partnership).

Above all, for her own credibility and for the sake of Australia's national interest she will make sure her position on uranium prevails at Labor's national conference in December.